Federal privacy board calls NSA phone data program illegal

This photo provided by The Guardian Newspaper in London shows Edward Snowden, who worked as a contract employee at the National Security Agency, in Hong Kong, Sunday, June 9, 2013. Disclosure of secret National Security Agency surveillance programs isnt the first time the government has been caught spying on Americans or that classified government information has been leaked. The Vietnam War and civil-rights protest movements of the 1960s and 1970s generated plenty of surveillance and secrecy. And leaks. (AP Photo/The Guardian) MANDATORY CREDIT

Washington — The U.S. National Security Agency is illegally collecting phone call records from millions of Americans and the program should be stopped, a federal privacy board said in a report issued today. The five-member Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, created by Congress to protect privacy under post-Sept. 11 anti-terrorism laws, said in a 238-page report that the program has provided only "minimal" help to the U.S. in thwarting other terrorist attacks....